Adidas

Bodega Babies Pusha T x Adidas Originals

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Working closely with Superimpose Studio and Tom Ralph of Caviar, The Mill created this latest spot for Adidas, exploring memories of Pusha T’s upbringing and the importance of Bodegas in his local community.

This latest ad is the fourth and final installment from the collaborative series between Adidas Originals and Pusha T. The short film is inspired by memories of Pusha T’s local bodega (convenience store) and it’s impact on his local community along with his own rise through the streets of New York.

The spot portrays bodegas as the heartbeat of the downtown community, presented in part surrealism, documentary and fiction with music featured from Pusha T’s upcoming album produced by Kanye West. People of all ages from the local community were shot spending time in and around their local bodega, interacting with each other and the shop itself.

Mill Colourist Oisin O’Driscoll explains, ‘This was a very exciting job as the material was shot on a mixture of Alexa and 16mm with a brief to match it all to the 16mm.

I began setting a look on the 16mm material where Alexa shots bridged the 16mm shots actions. Once I found a grade that worked across both formats I started to inspect the 16mm for how highlights were treated, grain and colour saturation levels that were not present in the Alexa shots.

Next I looked at the saturation levels from shot to shot. I found some 16mm shots had very heavily saturated colours so I reduced the 16mm and pushed the levels on the Alexa to find a good balance.

Finally, I looked at the density of the film grain and how it held through on the image. I noted that the grain falls off slightly in the shadows and the brighter highlights. Using a blending technique I added a film grain from the same stock the 16mm was shot on and zoomed it to get it to the same size.

I then noticed that the Alexa material though now matching in grain had some very strong coloured noise in it so I turned down selected channels to further match the formats.'